Pelosi Is One Reason We Are In Trouble
by Big Dog on Jul 3, 2010 at 13:11 Political
Nancy Pelosi is a shrewd politician but she is as dumb as a box of rocks. Her entire existence revolves around getting reelected and staying in power so she can institute Socialist programs. She lies constantly in order to push her agenda.
Remember, it was Pelosi who claimed TEA Party members (and others dissenting) were not patriotic and were violent. She had heard the rhetoric before and it was dangerous. Of course, the violence has come from the left and the stuff she heard before with the violence was liberal on liberal violence where Harvey Milk was killed over a political dispute among politicians.
The other problem with Pelosi is that she has no concept of what it is to run a balanced budget. She has no concept of how the economy works. She has no concept in what it means to make payroll, to produce profit, to provide for employees or to combat government intrusiveness as most business people do. This is evident in her latest bout of moronitis.
Nancy Pelosi said that unemployment checks are the fastest way to create jobs. Pelosi said this about unemployment; “It creates jobs faster than almost any other initiative you can name.”
Only a moron would tell you that unemployment checks are the fastest way to create jobs. First of all, unemployment is paid out of taxpayer money and money paid in by employers. If people are receiving this money and spending it they are just redistributing taxpayer money from one pair of hands to another. Any sales tax collected will never reach the level of the taxes paid to fund unemployment.
Besides, when people on unemployment spend money in casinos and strip clubs, how many jobs are created and how is this activity needed in any way?
It is also well known that you get more of what you subsidize. If you pay people to be on unemployment then more people will be on unemployment. There are jobs being offered right now that pay $12 an hour and people are not applying because they get more on unemployment. Pelosi would have you believe that paying people to do absolutely nothing will motivate them to actually do something. As long as unemployment benefits (and the term benefit is misleading at best) are continually extended there is no incentive for people to get a job. If those benefits had an end date then people would be forced to find a job. By continually extending the end date the motivation to find a job is diminished.
Pelosi is a moron who does not understand this concept.
She is also working against what reasonable people can see. If unemployment is the fastest way to create jobs then why, after extension of benefits up to 99 weeks (nearly TWO YEARS), has unemployment not been fixed. If it is a way to create jobs then why are we losing jobs each month? Why is the unemployment rate hovering around 10% and why did we lose 125,000 jobs in June. Keep in mind that the unemployment rate would be much higher but the number of people who have quit looking and reportedly dropped out of the labor market has increased which means that there are fewer people looking for jobs so they are not counted in the numbers.
I wonder if they are receiving unemployment checks. We should be counting each and every person getting an unemployment check in the numbers even if they have stopped looking for work (I thought Pelosi said the checks would create employment).
If unemployment checks are the fastest way to create jobs then why has the Obama regime missed its job creation goals and why has Joe Biden been forced to eat his words about how many jobs would be created?
And perhaps the biggest question of all is, if unemployment benefits are the fastest way to create jobs why have we not seen massive numbers of jobs created? Millions of people are on unemployment and it has been a few years since this all started so we should see all these jobs that Pelosi says unemployment checks create.
No, it will not happen because unemployment will NOT create jobs. Spending taxpayer money will NOT create jobs. Government does not create private sector jobs which are the only jobs that will increase tax revenues (public sector jobs are paid for with taxes so they do not help anything).
If we want to create jobs and get people off unemployment then we need to decrease taxes and decrease government involvement in the private sector. We need to give certainty to the business world that it will not be punished when hiring employees. Government has failed to do this. It punishes businesses based on numbers of employees (if you have more than 50 employees you must provide this or that to them) and those things keep businesses from hiring people. Why hire 51 people and have to pay when you can make do with 50 and not pay?
Government is the problem, not the solution. And it continues to be the problem because it is imposing one rule after another and those rules are stifling the creation of jobs. Businesses are worried about the cost of cap and trade, health care takeover and the tax increases that will hit 1 January 2011. These will potentially cost money and businesses are not going to hire people when these business killing items are out there posing a real threat.
Government programs like these and unemployment are job killing measures.
Despite what that moron Nancy Pelosi says, unemployment checks do NOT create employment.
She cannot show this to be true because it is not. Once again, she is lying to people for political purposes.
But I have to wonder, if this is such an important issue (and if they are willing to compromise), why did Democrats go on their week long 4th of July vacation (they come back the 12th) without passing the measure to increase unemployment?
They refused a Republican compromise that would have required them to pay for at least some of the extended benefits (Democrats promised Pay Go meaning they would pay for everything they passed) and went on vacation instead.
Voters should remember this in November. Help Pelosi by putting lots and lots of Congress critters on unemployment.
Remember, she said it is the fastest way to create jobs.
Moron…
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Tags: biden, job losses, lies, moron, Obama, Pelosi, unemployment, welfare
“Only a moron would tell you that unemployment checks are the fastest way to create jobs.”
Actually, I don’t know about it being the fastest way to create jobs but I do know the concept of unemployment checks being stimulating is in no way some delusion by Pelosi. Mark Zandi of Moody’s argued before Congress that next to a temporary increase in Food Stamps the extension of UI Benefits is the largest stimulator of economic growth.
“Any sales tax collected will never reach the level of the taxes paid to fund unemployment.”
The point is simply that the money gets spent and the spending drives economic growth.
“If it is a way to create jobs then why are we losing jobs each month? Why is the unemployment rate hovering around 10% and why did we lose 125,000 jobs in June.”
Each month? There has been a net increase in private sector jobs every month this year (including in June) for a total of +593,000. There was a net decrease in total nonfarm for June just because census jobs are ending. Even factoring in the drop in government jobs total nonfarm is at +882,000 on the year. It could be much better but for some reason you still pretend the jobs just aren’t coming.
“Keep in mind that the unemployment rate would be much higher but the number of people who have quit looking and reportedly dropped out of the labor market has increased…”
Actually at this point unemployment would be 11.2% instead of 9.5% if you factored in the others. That’s not “much higher” but it’s not insignificant either. There are 2.6 million marginally attached workers on top of 14.6 million unemployed.
Paying unemployment does not stimulate the economy and the money being spent (especially at casinos and strip clubs) is not doing anything but keeping people from working.
There has been no net gain in public sector jobs as we have lost more jobs than we have gained, a net loss. I don’t want to hear about temporary census workers affecting the June numbers because you guys said that they did not matter when they were used to bolster numbers. Besides, they are a wash.
Of course I predicted that the loss would be blamed on census job losses after the crowing about gains that were 90% census jobs.
The unemployment rate would be nearly 17% if all the people who stopped looking for jobs were counted.
As for the whole mess, the country is where Oilbama said we would be without the stimulus so we could have done without it.
If unemployment checks are stimulating then why do we have a stagnant economy? How can they be better than actually having people with jobs.
All the unemployment money spent and the UE rate remains the same and the economy is not moving so obviously UE checks fail on both parts.
VP Joe BiteMe said we would have lots and lots of jobs and now he says they cannot be recovered.
Once again, we have lost more jobs than have been created so it is obvious that UE checks (or anything so far) has not done much.
Most of any increase reported has been in temporary help services.
We should also keep in mind that about 100,000 jobs are needed each month to keep pace so if we are averaging that then we are not making headway and are stagnant.
The numbers reported will be revised and could go up or down. They will not be valid for about 90 days and thus far we have seen numbers revised down quite a few times.
But if we assume that 882,000 jobs have been created this year that amounts to 1.1 million dollars a job base on the cost of the stimulus.
Great with our money those Democrats are…
“The unemployment rate would be nearly 17% if all the people who stopped looking for jobs were counted.”
Wrong. The only way you reach close to 17% is by counting the underemployment. That is a much different figure than what you’re talking about. You can do the math yourself based on the June report numbers.
Unemployment is 9.5%, Unemployment + Discouraged is 10.3% and Unemployment + Marginally attached is 11.2%. Unemployment + Marginally attached + Underemployment = 17.0%.
“If unemployment checks are stimulating then why do we have a stagnant economy?”
That’s like saying “If gun control works why are there still gun crimes?” In fact you’ve used that argument too and it’s equally faulty. A better one is saying a penny obviously doesn’t weight 2.5 grams since it can’t tip the scale against a 1 pound lead weight.
The effect of unemployment checks on economic growth is not enough to kick the economy into high gear but for the same reason the stimulus was created it can offset the pain just a bit.
“There has been no net gain in public sector jobs as we have lost more jobs than we have gained, a net loss.”
I’m speaking in terms of this year. You asked “why are we losing jobs each month?” We aren’t losing jobs each month. The private sector growth has been steady this year.
Again I must remind you that the stimulus itself was never supposed to create a net gain in jobs from the start of the recession. It was just supposed to limit the damage.
“But if we assume that 882,000 jobs have been created this year that amounts to 1.1 million dollars a job base on the cost of the stimulus.”
It doesn’t simplify down to that and you know it.
How many people have stopped looking, in total? Do they know that number?
What it simplifies down to is we spent a huge amount of money for little gain. We have basically spent a trillion dollars to get to where they said we would be without the stimulus.
Sorry Adam, they keep promising job creation and they are not getting it done.
Here is why, government does not create jobs. END OF STORY.
The government can spend taxpayer money to employ people in the government but the only jobs that bring in tax revenue are private sector and the only people who can create them are private sector owners. Those people are worried about taxes, laws, cap and trade, and health care and do not want to hire.
Private sector people are worried about losing their jobs.
The economy would have been producing better numbers and jobs had we not spent the stimulus and had we not passed job killing legislation.
I would have thought you people would have figured this out after Carter but here you are claiming that these things, things that FAILED, in the past are needed to save the country.
And you are wrong.
Unemployment checks do not stimulate and they do not create jobs. If they did we would not have problems because we have given out billions in unemployment.
Basically, you will not stimulate the economy by taking money from producers and giving it to non producers and then having them spend the money in the businesses of the producers. It does nothing to stimulate.
The producers are being socked with higher and higher unemployment taxes. It quadrupled here in MD. The UE checks cannot make that back up. Merchants are just getting a fraction of what they have spent, back.
And you know that most of the money spent from the stimulus was not job creating and was not economy stimulating. It was spent on BS projects like turtle tunnels.
And Adam, the stimulus was supposed to stimulate the economy so that jobs would be produced.
It is not happening. The recovery would have been faster without it.
But you claim it is not as simple as running a household budget.
It certainly is as long as you have the right function for government. It is not as simple to you because you and your ilk believe that government should be running everything, most of which is not found in the Constitution. Therefore you believe in taking from one person and giving to another which is theft if done outside the government.
I believe that government has a limited role and if it cut spending to that authorized in the Constitution, got rid of most of the wasteful social programs and cut taxes (but made EVERYONE pay) we would be better off.
History shows that this is correct. Problems start with overreaching government.
I compare it to my household budget because it is that simple, it is just bigger. If I included my neighbors in my budget and vowed to provide for all of them (which is not the responsibility of MY household) then I would have problems.
You and yours need government to wipe your butts so you expect others to pay for it.
A liberal always has his hand in someone else’s pocket.
“How many people have stopped looking, in total? Do they know that number?”
Over what time span? As far as I can tell the number simply fluctuates month to month but has shown a net increase of about 844,000 since the start of the recession with over a 4th of that change coming in the last 6 months alone.
The U4 value of Unemployed + Discouraged is not that many more people. It sits at 1,207,000 right now and increase in the difference between U3 and U4 is only about 0.05% since the recession started from 0.03% to 0.08% increase today.
“We have basically spent a trillion dollars to get to where they said we would be without the stimulus.”
Don’t forget that a significant chunk of the stimulus was tax cuts which you support apparently.
“Unemployment checks do not stimulate and they do not create jobs. If they did we would not have problems because we have given out billions in unemployment.”
Again, this is faulty reasoning. Right, we have sent out billions in unemployment to counter a multi-trillion dollar drop in GDP. Don’t you get the problem with your insistence that if it was working we wouldn’t have a problem?
The argument against rebate checks is that they go to pay off debt or get saved. You don’t save food stamps or unemployment. It goes right back into the economy whether it’s at Wal-mart or a strip club in West Hollywood called Voyeur. It’s not like anyone is saying these benefits alone save the economy but they are considered by many economists to be the biggest boosters of economic growth.
“I compare it to my household budget because it is that simple, it is just bigger. If I included my neighbors in my budget and vowed to provide for all of them (which is not the responsibility of MY household) then I would have problems.”
Surely you don’t think economists go to school for years on end just to learn what they could be learning from home working a family budget? That’s madness. It’s not simple…at all.
“You and yours need government to wipe your butts so you expect others to pay for it.”
Sorry. We don’t need the government for everything. We’re normal hard working people just like most other Americans. We just know that the self-centered, fend-for-yourself attitude that you seem to live by doesn’t help people or the country at large when they lose their jobs or get sick or hurt and can no longer work or pay the bills or feed the kids.
But don’t worry. You’re still free to keep your hand in your own pocket all you like.
Keep my hand in my pocket? When you can say you have given as much to charity then you can make that claim. I believe that the charity is from the individual and not through government. We don’t need millions of government workers to dole out money confiscated from taxpayers. We got along fine without all that prior to the progressive movement which marked the beginning of the downward cycles.
As for economists, they go to school for years and then embrace one of several economic theories. The guys advising Obama have just selected the wrong one to embrace. Time and again and in many countries we have seen that this does not work.
But we shall see. Perception is a major part of the issue and people do not perceive that things are going well. Mostly because they are not.
We have a 106 TRILLION dollar unfunded mandate. You can say that people need a hand and that government should give that hand but look at how it has destroyed SS and Medicare. It will destroy health care.
I only hope that when it all goes to hell we can line up the people who caused it and supported it and make them pay for what they have done.
The attitude is not self centered, it is people centered. We will give you a hand up and not a hand out. You are the opposite.
The real way to stimulate the economy is to foster an environment where businesses are willing to hire people. This regime has not done this. It has embraced the Socialist views and methods and it is failing.
And job gains, if they actually exist, are not keeping pace with the 100k demand a month just to accommodate the new workers much less those out of work.
It is quite simple. If you spend more than you take in and you promise everything to everyone then you will fail.
Government is doing this and it is failing.
Tell your economists to go back to school and actually learn.
“When you can say you have given as much to charity then you can make that claim.”
I was not speaking in terms of charity.
“We got along fine without all that prior to the progressive movement which marked the beginning of the downward cycles.”
Downward cycles? You’ll have to put a little more context into that one.
“We will give you a hand up and not a hand out. You are the opposite.”
Don’t be silly. You aren’t offering any hand. You tell them to help themselves up.
“And job gains, if they actually exist, are not keeping pace with the 100k demand a month just to accommodate the new workers much less those out of work.”
They do exist. I don’t know why you cast doubt on that. You’re right though about the 100k. Don’t mistake my support for the stimulus and my belief that it has largely succeeded at it’s goals with a total support for what Obama has done for jobs or a belief that everything is rosy in the economy.
I don’t know if the economy will grow any faster this year but it has a big hole to dig out of and about 8.4 million private sector jobs have been lost between Dec 2007 and Dec 2009. We could add back a net total of 1 million in the private sector this year which would be a good start but it’s still a long hard road.
We certainly both think something needs to be done. I do not think it is government’s job nor isit capable of creating jobs.
You made the claim that I kept my hand in my pocket and that is not true. Yes, a hand up and not ignore and let them fend for themselves. You want to keep giving money with no conditions. How about we tighten rules and make people on UE or welfare clean parks or do some other work that needs to be done. We have lots of roads that have littewr that needs to be picked up.
Yes, I offer a hand, you offer my house. There is a difference. You get more of what you subsidize. You kewep paying people not to work and more will not work.
Now, gubmit needs to foster and environment where private sector employers can hire. That is all gubmint can do to help create jobs.
I doubt anything gubmint says. When it uses fairy dust and imaginary numbers like jobs SAVED then you know it is a shell game. When Obama’s regime concocts methods to count jobs that were not actually created, when they hire for the census, then let go, then call back, then let go, then call back and count all these as jobs something is wrong..
You say these jobs exist but most of what has been “created” are temporary jobs. Those are not helpful in the long run.
I do not think you will see 1 million added this year. I think it is going to get worse and most employers are waiting for the tax increases that will slam them on Jan 1, 2011. That will be a job killer.
“How about we tighten rules and make people on UE or welfare clean parks or do some other work that needs to be done.”
I don’t understand that thinking though. What do you consider welfare? Do you have a source of stats that shows how many people on welfare just sit around not working as opposed the number too sick or old to work and those who work part time? You always act like that is a significant number.
“Yes, I offer a hand, you offer my house.”
No, the only difference mainly is I want to slightly increase taxes on the wealthiest Americans to better fund these programs and you think that’s a bad idea.
I don’t want you to be any less free. I don’t want there to be zero poor people and zero rich people. These are things your side makes up and repeats about liberals to win elections.
“You say these jobs exist but most of what has been ‘created’ are temporary jobs. Those are not helpful in the long run.”
So? It has never been about permanently employing people and I’m not sure why you keep wanting to believe otherwise. The goal was to bridge the gap in jobs lost and GDP decline in order stimulate economic growth and create jobs.
The stimulus was never supposed to send the economy into boom or create a massive net increase in jobs. It was always simply designed to offset the damage done and hasten a recovery.
Time and again you insist that since the economy is still slow and the job losses still great then clearly it’s evidence that the stimulus hasn’t worked. It’s time for you to be honest about what the stimulus goals were and until you do I don’t expect you to ever believe it was even partially successful.
You could take all the money that rich people make (and what defines rich) and it would not pay the bills. That is 100% of their money and you could not pay for these things. Taxing the rich just a little bit more will not help. There are too many people who benefit from the programs and too many who pay little or NO taxes.
You can believe that taxing the rich just a bit more will help but it will not. A flat tax of 11% on everyone would pay the bills but too many people have this idea that someone else should pay the bills. These are the same kinds who expected bailouts and had mortgages reworked at great rates while the responsible people could not get those rates.
What was the stimulus for?
It’s a plan that will save or create three to four million jobs in businesses large and small across a wide range of industries – and 90 percent of these jobs will be in the private sector. And I want to be clear – we’re not looking to create just any kind of jobs here. We’re looking to create good jobs that pay well and won’t be shipped overseas. Jobs that don’t just put people to work in the short-term, but position our economy to be on the cutting edge in the long-term. – B. Obama
And the purpose of stimulus is, first and foremost, to mitigate unemployment. The fact that the economy may be technically in recovery is irrelevant. – Paul Krugman
Obama said that his goal is to put together a plan that “not only creates jobs in the short-term but spurs economic growth and competitiveness in the long-term.” (what is short term?)
On Feb. 13, 2009, Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 at the urging of President Obama, who signed it into law four days later. A direct response to the economic crisis, the Recovery Act has three immediate goals:
Create new jobs and save existing ones
Spur economic activity and invest in long-term growth
Foster unprecedented levels of accountability and transparency in government spending
– Recovery.gov
It would seem that the anticipated effect of the stimulus was to provide immediate goals and those goals have not been met. The concept was to do things that would have these effects now and continue economic growth in the future. Since this has not happened and since the unemployment is still high ( the main goal according to Krugman) and since nowhere near 90% of jobs “created” were in the private sector you would have to explain to me how I have it wrong.
“You could take all the money that rich people make (and what defines rich) and it would not pay the bills.”
Sure it would, but we’re not taking all. We need to slightly raise taxes on individuals and couples making over $200,000 and $250,000 a year and above. It wouldn’t pay down the debt right away but in a decade or so and coupled with smarter government spending (like an intelligent scaling back our defense budget) we wouldn’t have much of a debt problem except in times like now when we’re going to run up debts to be paid down later when (hopefully) economic activity is stronger.
“Since this has not happened and since the unemployment is still high ( the main goal according to Krugman) and since nowhere near 90% of jobs ‘created’ were in the private sector you would have to explain to me how I have it wrong.”
You’re still thinking in terms of unemployment percentages but that isn’t valid. You have to think of the package as a fixed amount of dollars going to create a fixed amount of jobs.
The report estimated they would add back 3 or 4 million jobs to a loss of 5 and be at about 7% unemployment by the end of this year. Instead it looks like we’ll add only about 2.5 million back to a loss of 8.3 and be at 9%.
The package will be very close to creating the number of jobs it was intended to create but it just cannot affect the unemployment rate the same as was planned.
“…and since nowhere near 90% of jobs…”
Private sector has been about 67% of the net job growth this year alone. It’s not good but it’s not as dismal as you present it without looking at the numbers. The other jobs are census jobs though so without them adding to the government total we might actually have seen closer to the 90% that you’re talking about. It would be hard to say unless we could decide exactly how many census jobs there have been added this year versus jobs the stimulus is responsible for.
Absolutely not. You could take all the wealth and it would not dent the deficit or our debt.
So 200k or 250k defines rich? That is a far cry from what rich use to mean.
Taking any more money from them will not pay off anything. First of all, smart spending and government is an oxymoron.
Second, the defense budget is about 25% of the total. Social programs account for nearly 67% of the budget. Want to scale something down, scale down the social programs.
I doubt he stimulus created any jobs and since the net is a loss there is no point. We have lost more jobs than so called created.
We were at 9.5% last June and 9.5% this June. Private sector creates jobs (the rich folks you want to tax) and they are not hiring because of weariness. They do not know what DC will do to make like miserable or impossible for them.
The federal government has hired quite a few people, excluding the census workers. Government gets bigger and the private sector (where the taxes come from) gets smaller.
“So 200k or 250k defines rich? That is a far cry from what rich use to mean.”
Well, I don’t know anything about that but the 250k mark makes up the top 2% of American incomes.
“Social programs account for nearly 67% of the budget.”
Well, it depends on how you define social programs but there’s plenty of cuts to be made all around.
“I doubt he stimulus created any jobs and since the net is a loss there is no point.”
We have to start somewhere, don’t we? The stimulus was never designed to create a net increase in jobs over the total lost because of the recession. It was just supposed to add back or prevent losses of a significant chunk of jobs and GDP.
“…the rich folks you want to tax…”
Do we have to keep going over this? You know the rich don’t create most of the jobs. That is still done by small business owners which the vast majority make below 250k.
“The federal government has hired quite a few people, excluding the census workers.”
This isn’t true really. When you look at the historical data for government sector jobs you see that between 2000 and the end of 2007 when the recession started the average growth has been +19,000 jobs per month. The average growth per month between December 2007 and June 2010 (With May and Jun Preliminary of course) has been +15,000 and that includes the Census.
So even with the Census jobs boosting that count over the last few months there has actually been fewer people hired per month than the historical average. This means that without the Census the government sector jobs might have actually showed a loss over the last few months while the private sector has shown strong growth of roughly 577,000 this year.
You seem to be pushing the idea that the stimulus is creating mostly government jobs but that’s really not true.
I think you miss the point. The fact that the number of government workers hired is lower than historical averages is of no consequence. The reality is we have lost 7.3 million private sector jobs and have had a net loss while public sector has increased. Even without the census there has been a net gain in government jobs.
Throw in the state and local government employees hired and the number is even bigger at a time when states are losing private sector jobs.
Interesting
“Throw in the state and local…”
Actually the BLS government stats already includes state and local. I’m not sure if you’ve used it but BLS has a very cool public database tool for the historical “A” and “B” tables.
“Even without the census there has been a net gain in government jobs.”
That is actually not correct. Between January and June the gov hired 549,000 for the Census according to BLS. They cut back by -255 in June. There was a net loss of jobs in gov until the Census in January and since then virtually all growth has been because of Census jobs. If it were not for Census jobs then June numbers would come in at a net loss of -91,000 jobs.
Still, it’s correct that the very vast majority of job losses have been in the private sector. That’s typical though and I don’t see the point your making or the point of the article you posted. Gov sector jobs have not suffered equivalent losses in either of the last 2 recessions.
For instance between March 2001 with the start of the recession and July 2003 when positive job growth started again, there was a net loss of 3.4 million jobs in the private sector versus +700,000 in government.
Some people have gotten 2 years of benefits- that is at least a year too long, even erring on the side of compassion- some people need to be motivated by starvation to get off of their butts.